Europe – 黑料社区

Condensing the Gaza crisis

March 22, 2024 kjayasuriyaLeave a comment

The Gaza crisis has underscored the deep fractures of domestic politics in Western Europe, the US and Australia. It is as much a domestic political crisis as a conflict in the Middle East.

What is the nature of this crisis? Well, it is not one but multiple crises that are condensed around the Gaza war. Now condensation is an interesting concept 鈥� first used by Freud to show how a single idea or dream stands for multiple associations and ideas. We can think of the Gaza crisis as a political condensation of several multiple and intersecting crises and their different temporalities. It condenses a series of fracture points: the crisis of representation, an increasingly authoritarian response to the political conflict, the unravelling of the international liberal order and the politics of race and class. It reinforces a shift to what the Marxist political theorist Nicos Poulantzas termed authoritarian statism which is the intensification of authoritarian tendencies within ostensibly democratic institutions and processes.

First, it is now fashionable to apply the term decolonisation to global politics but this decolonization is always seen as 鈥榦ut there鈥� and distinct from the politics of class. Instead, I want to argue the Gaza crisis has brought decolonisation back home to the streets of London, Paris, Berlin, Sydney and New York. It is often forgotten that many of those on the streets are demanding not just a ceasefire in Gaza but a political voice that is marginalised. And let’s not forget that this plays out in the register of both class and race. Many 鈥� but by no means all – of those in the streets are the new migrant working class and Gaza is an expression of their political discontent. The social theorist 鈥� Stuart Hall 鈥� famously said that race is the medium through which class is lived and in the Gaza crisis we see an intersection of class and race. It is return of the political time of colonial politics but this time in the metropolis of the old colonies. This class and domestic dimension is often forgotten in the sanitised version of decolonisation that circulates within academia. Again, the Gaza crisis condenses existing political fractures.

The Ideal Amount of Work and Leisure

November 14, 2023November 4, 2023 Hritic GautamLeave a comment

Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys, has attracted significant attention for his in which he advises Indian youth to work 70 hours a week to contribute to the nation鈥檚 growth. Mr. Murthy, who also happens to be the father-in-law of the UK鈥檚 Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, supports his advice by drawing parallels to the post-war recoveries of Germany and Japan. He suggests that Indian corporate leaders should similarly consider increasing employees鈥� working hours to enhance productivity

In my view, Mr. Murthy鈥檚 advice is ignorant and misinformed at best, or highly malicious at worst. In either case, it is profoundly misguided. In this blog, we will critically assess his statement, examining both its intent and factual accuracy. This discussion will also lead to broader reflections on the themes of work and leisure

Financial Statecraft and its Limits in the Semi-Periphery

September 12, 2023August 31, 2023 karasgdavidLeave a comment

Over the past decade, two, intertwined research agendas on (IFS) and (SF) have proposed to identify how an increasingly finance-dominated global capitalism incorporates the (Semi-)Peripheries.

The IFS research agenda recognizes that a 鈥渟ubordinate鈥� national currency comes with a risk premium increasing the costs of financing public debt 鈥� in other words, the current, US dollar-based currency hierarchy acts as a structural fiscal constraint in the Global South, limiting the scope for badly needed public investments. Foreign capital 鈥� in the form of foreign currency-denominated sovereign and private debt-, foreign aid, and foreign direct investment – is then to this artificial and unfair developmental constraint.

The SF agenda examines how this straightjacket on fiscal space has been further compounded with the liberalization of global capital mobility over the past forty years, diffusing credit-based accumulation strategies from the Core to the Peripheries: from socially and environmentally vital public goods and transformative industrial policies towards developmentally regressive strategies of accumulation driven by speculation and asset-price inflation.

Programmatic visions for liberating (semi-) peripheral economies from the dual constraints of a national fiscal space suffocated by the global currency hierarchy and globally mobile capital flows which deepen financialization are underdeveloped. Two scales of action are plausible: At the international level, , but it remains uncertain what forms of international financial solidarity and collaboration, if any, will materialize under its aegis. The national level comprises an alternative scale as the State continues to be perceived as the most likely candidate for ringfencing domestic social, environmental, and developmental objectives from the pressures of global capital mobility and the structural constraints of the global currency hierarchy.

In a with P谋nar E. 顿枚苍尘别锄, we study the politics governing the management of money in Hungary and Turkey, two semi-peripheral economies where the executive has built a vast array of direct and indirect tools to intervene in monetary policy, retail banking and credit allocation to manage financial subordination.

Authoritarian Neoliberalism and Post-Soviet Currency Boards

August 25, 2023August 24, 2023 jsalygaLeave a comment

The surge of right-wing populism in East-Central Europe is often portrayed as an unforeseen shift from the earlier post-1989 liberalization path. The 鈥渋lliberal transformation鈥� narrative underlines stark differences between the policy arsenals that informed democratization and marketization reforms in the early 1990s and those fueling current 鈥�.鈥� Yet this framing conceals the analytical maneuver of disconnecting the political sphere from its socioeconomic counterpart, thereby limiting democracy to the former and defining democratic participation based on electoral competition.

It was precisely this separation, which at the dawn of post-communist transformation, tended to align democratization not with leveling erstwhile power and wealth disparities, but with by the lingering elements of Soviet bureaucracy. Conceived in this way, democratization was deemed to be an engine of market reforms. Insofar as much of the 鈥渢ransitology鈥� scholarship operated with a parochial 鈥渄emocracy鈥� versus 鈥渁uthoritarianism鈥� dichotomy, it repeatedly obscured authoritarian tendencies in consolidating democratic systems.

In the recently published article , I argue that the corpus on 鈥渁uthoritarian neoliberalism鈥� is well-positioned to instigate a much-needed departure from this externalization of 鈥減olitical鈥� and 鈥渟ocioeconomic鈥� spheres when revisiting the intricacies of post-communist transformation in general and monetary reforms in the Baltic states in particular.

The Academic Labour Movement: Lessons from the New School and Beyond

April 14, 2023April 13, 2023 Robert NobleLeave a comment

鈥淎t its best, one of the most creative activities is being involved in a struggle with other people, breaking out of our isolation, seeing our relations with others change, discovering new dimensions in our lives 鈥� it [is] a powerful collective experience鈥�.

Silvia Federici, 1984

News broke on the very last day of 2022 that members of the New School鈥檚 part-time faculty (PTF) union – ACT-UAW 7902 – had voted to ratify a new five-year contract, following what some are calling the longest adjunct strike in American history (Hamberg, 2022). A 鈥檛entative agreement鈥� was reached on December 10^th, after almost a month of strike action where more than 1,600 PTF members had taken to the picket line. Their existing contract had expired, and there was no sign of a satisfactory renewal. The dispute was multifaceted, but primarily concerned poor pay, uncompensated labour time, general job security and health insurance coverage.

The agreement solidified a historic pay increase (the largest PTF at the New School have ever received), as well as an enhanced offer for paid family leave, improved terms for annualisation, compensation for labor performed outside of the classroom and improvements in health care access (Hamberg, 2022). Whilst there is much to be celebrated in these gains, for the New School community this was a month-long struggle marked with uncertainty, tension, and growing hostility. The disconnect between the university鈥檚 administration and its community of faculty and students was made painfully, publicly evident. Observers couldn鈥檛 help but call hypocrisy on an institution founded on radical values employing 鈥渃orporate union-busting tactics 鈥� antithetical to [its] progressive heritage鈥� (Hamberg, 2022).

Much can be gleaned from this contained episode: the state of higher education following a period of its incessant marketisation; the power of organised labour to rally against exploitation; the role higher education specifically can play in a wider workers鈥� movement. This blog post will attempt to place the New School鈥檚 recent ACT-UAW 7902 strike in its wider context, that of an (inter)national worker movement, both within the higher education sector and beyond. By doing this, I will elicit some of the unique contributions academics, other university workers and students themselves can offer such a movement.

Agricultural production, sectoral imbalances and inflation in Albania: A Kaleckian view

December 12, 2022November 25, 2022 mimozashabaniLeave a comment

The current remarkable surge in inflation is considered to be a nearly global phenomena (Reinhart and Lucker 2022), affecting both developed and developing nations. While there may be common drivers of inflation, such as factors associated with the Covid-19 pandemic followed by Russia鈥檚 invasion of Ukraine, there are considerable variations in the causes of it, especially with reference to developing countries, including Albania. Drawing on Kalecki鈥檚 (1976) Essays on Developing Economies, I argue that there are also domestic factors attributed to the increase in inflation that resides in the structural sectoral imbalances of the Albanian economy.

Rising prices in Albania sparked protests across the country in March 2022. The protests highlighted the rise in food prices which increased by more than 9% compared to March in the previous year; with the price of bread being the main contributor to such increase. With Albanians spending more than 42% of their total budget on food, rising prices of 鈥榥ecessities鈥� adds more pressure to the poor households to make ends meet. Nearly a quarter of Albanians, 640,000 people, already live in poverty (Kote 2022) and soaring prices in the economy could push people further into poverty. But what is pushing food prices to soar in a country where agricultural land accounts for 24% of overall land, a good Mediterranean climate, and water resources, all of which are crucial for agricultural development? Despite these favourable conditions, the productive capacity of Albania鈥檚 agriculture sector to meet domestic demand for food and feed meets is only one third (World Bank, 2022a). 聽

Beyond ideology, we need an emergency tax for emergency times: What the UK could learn from tax debates in Latin America

November 3, 2022November 22, 2022 taxingmattLeave a comment

Paying for the energy price guarantee has highlighted a deep political cleavage around tax ideology. Reframing windfall as emergency will be critical to leverage a change in direction.聽

Tax is always contentious. Debates surrounding who should pay, how much, and where the revenues are redistributed to are the heart of state power and national and global political economies. No one likes paying taxes but seeing tax only through the lens of either powerful interest groups or electoral politics misses the extent to which the contemporary tax debate in the UK, in particular in relation to so-called 鈥榳indfall鈥� taxes on energy companies is driven by ideology. Ideas of tax 鈥� which ones should be levied, at what rate, to whom – are embedded in wider ideas of state and the role of government in socio-economic life. In the UK, political parties that call for higher taxes are associated with an interventionalist and redistributive state, while those who argue for low taxes believe in individual responsibility and markets. But the UK is currently facing an unprecedented economic crisis and the decision not to backdate taxes on the extraordinary profits energy companies have been making to pay for state intervention in energy markets in September 2022 has been based on ideology, underpinned by a set of ideals and ideas, when what is needed is a pragmatic response to an emergency. If opposition parties could move away from the language of 鈥榳indfall鈥� that suggests the need to 鈥榩unish鈥� companies for excess profits and speak instead of the need to come together to respond a national emergency, it might have helped them cut through the government鈥檚 ideology approach. To do so, there are lessons that can be learned from , in this case Latin America.

Neoliberal capitalism and the聽commodification聽of social reproduction, from our home to our classroom

February 8, 2022 alemezzadriLeave a comment

It is official: we are getting ready for another round of industrial action in the UK higher education sector. For those who may be wondering what the current is all about, a short recap may help. Higher education UCU members are striking because of planned pensions cuts that risk pushing academic staff into 鈥榬etirement poverty鈥�; to fight against ever-growing labour casualisation in universities; and because of the growing inequalities of gender, race and class the UK higher education sector has nurtured in the last five decades. Colleagues at Goldsmith 鈥� to whom we shall extend all our support – are also fighting .

We 鈥� higher education workers and students – were on this picket before, so many times, fighting other policies deepening the process of commodification of education. We were on this picket fighting 鈥� which education workers are still experiencing. We were on this picket to fight against the . At SOAS, where I work, we were on this picket to , , against the on campus ground – an event which remains the darkest chapter of SOAS industrial relations and for which the university has not yet apologised in recognition of the harm caused to the and to all our community. We hope the school will acknowledge the need to do so, so that we can move forward, together.

We were at other demonstrations and on other picket lines, protesting against austerity, in the , , against racism and in support of against . The picket really is a sort of archive, which can be consulted backward to reconstruct a history of attacks to our rights – at work, at home, or both.

And if we consult this archive, we can clearly see a pattern emerging in the last decades, a pattern which in fact connects neoliberal Britain with many other places in the world economy, which have also experienced processes of neoliberalisation. All the pickets and demonstrations, become a sort of tracing route; we can reconnect the dots spread across a broader canvas. These dots design a specific pattern; that of a systematic attack to life and life-making sectors, realms and spaces.

, starting from the 1980s, has promoted a process of systematic de-concentration of resources in public sectors, and particularly in so-called 鈥�socially reproductive sectors鈥�, that is those that regenerate us as people and as workers. This attack has been massively felt in the home, which has become a major battleground for processes of . The withdrawal of the state from welfare provisions, the rise and rise of co-production in services (i.e. the incorporation of citizens鈥� unpaid labour in public service delivery;聽 a practice further cheapening welfare) – 聽and processes of partial or full privatisation of service delivery in healthcare and education have . These gaps have been filled through to others. 黑料社区s have become net users of market-based domestic and care services. The in-sourcing of nannies, au-pairs, and elders carers, from a vast number of countries in the Global south and transition economies have remade the home as a site of production and employment generation, at extremely low costs.

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